How many police officer positions to fund? In August 2020, the question facing St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, which might have seemed routine to another mayor at another time in another place, was anything but. A pandemic had rendered the city some $19-$34 million short for 2021. Advocates across the country (and nearby) had pointed to a likely pool for budget cuts: police departments. The May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in neighboring Minneapolis by a police officer there, had sparked calls nationwide to "defund the police" and pushback to those calls. What would St. Paul's mayor do?
For Carter, the question was about much more than shifting money. He had swept into office in 2018 promising equity. He had spoken from experience about what it felt like to be pulled over by police because he was Black. He had committed to, and then undertaken with his police chief, use of force reforms in 2018. He had monitored closely an increase in neighborhood shootings and homicides in 2019 and declared that public safety must be "our first and highest ambition upon which all other dreams must be built." Carter wanted nothing short of a new public safety framework that would include-but be much more expansive than-simply responding to emergencies, and that would be rooted in community. "I see a clear vision of the future," said Carter, "but transitioning to get there is an open question."

【書誌情報】

ページ数：30ページ

サイズ：A4

商品番号：HBSP-821005

発行日：2020/11/13

登録日：2021/2/19